Chapter 26 – Relapse

Beat returned to the Garage late in the night and quietly entered his room. The rest of the GGs seemed to be asleep and he didn't want to disturb them. He flicked the lights on and took off his skates. As he walked towards his bed, he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror above his bedside table; his shirt was wrinkled and his hair was untidy from his intimate meeting with Kat. He knew that he would wake up messy anyway so he decided to ignore his looks.

He placed his headphones, music player, and sunglasses on the table and walked back towards the door to turn the lights back off. Right as he was about to flick the light switch, he heard a light knock on his door. He opened the door to see Gum standing there in the hallway.

"Gum? What are you doing still up?" he asked her. "Were you waiting for me to come back?"

"N-No, I was up doing something when I heard you in the hallway," she replied. "Can I come in?"

"I was just about to go to bed. What do you want?"

"I just wanted to talk for a bit."

Beat sighed and let her into his room. He walked back towards his bed and sat down. It was then that he noticed her outfit. She was wearing a white button-up blouse and black tartan skirt, with white socks that almost reached up to her knees. What stuck out the most to Beat was the pretty little blue bow that she had clipped in her hair — it didn't seem her style at all.

Beat looked down at her chest and noticed that she once again wasn't wearing a bra, but this time he was able to see slightly through her blouse. He quickly looked away, but was too embarrassed to point it out to her.

"Wearing another new set of clothes, I see," he remarked with his eyes shifted downwards.

Gum looked down at her clothes, as if she had just noticed them for the first time. "Oh, yeah, I was trying on my old school uniform for fun."

"Now?" Beat exclaimed. "Why the hell are you playing dress-up in the middle of the night?"

"I couldn't sleep and… I dunno, I just felt like it." She twirled in front of him. "So, how do I look?"

Beat refused to look back at her. "Did you only come here to get fashion advice?" he asked her.

"No, it's not that," she said before sitting down next to him. He could no longer see through her blouse from that angle so he safely looked towards her.

She continued. "I'm… I'm worried that infiltrating the Rokkaku Building will be more dangerous than we think."

Beat looked at her with bewilderment. "B-But you were the one who wanted to do it! You even said so yourself that it's a risk worth taking."

"Yeah, but now I'm having second thoughts. I know that we have to do it to save Corn, but my mind is being haunted by scary what-ifs. Can you say something that'll help calm me down a bit?"

Beat looked at her sternly. "No, I can't, because the honest truth is that it will be incredibly dangerous."

Gum lightly shoved him. "Don't say that!"

"I have to," he retorted, "because we can't afford to not take this seriously. We have to be realistic, and that means dealing with the scary fact that we'll be risking our lives. But we have to do it, because Corn is our leader and we can't let him down."

Gum looked down at her hands tucked in between her legs. "I know…"

He gently patted her on the back. "Alright, I'm really tired so if that's all you wanted to talk about then I'm gonna hit the sack."

Gum looked back at him. "What were you and Kat up to earlier?" she asked him.

Beat gave her an annoyed look. "Why do you care so much about what I do with my girlfriend?"

Gum ignored the question. "I wonder why that Cube chick left Rapid 99. Those girls must not be fun to be around."

"Cube already told us why she left their gang," Beat said. "And she's the one with the problem since she went crawling to Poison Jam afterwards."

"Or maybe Poison Jam are actually cooler people than Rapid 99," Gum said with a smirk. "That's pretty sad, don'tcha think?"

Beat was fed up with Gum. "What the hell's your problem?" he exclaimed to her. "Why do you keep shitting on my girlfriend and her friends?"

Gum merely shrugged her shoulders. "Hey, I'm just calling things as I see them."

Beat was about to kick her out of his room when the truth suddenly dawned on him. Ever since he'd been dating Kat, Gum had been acting strangely around him. The unwarranted insults towards his girlfriend, the alluring clothes she modeled in front of him — she was trying to manipulate him the entire time.

He stared at her with a disgusted look on his face. "I can't believe the Love Shockers were right about you."

All of a sudden, Gum's smirk vanished and she became visibly panicked. "What? What did they say about me?"

Beat looked into her nervous eyes. "They said that you're a manipulative heartbreaker."

Gum looked offended. "I'm not manipulative!" she contended. "Those lying scumbags are just making shit up!"

Beat stood up from his bed and raised his voice at her. "You're trying to manipulate me right now! You keep coming into my room wearing revealing clothing and making fun of my girlfriend. It's obvious that you've been trying to get my attention, but what makes it sick is that you're doing it when I'm already taken. It's like you're trying to convince me to break up with Kat so that I can get with you. And for what? So that you can break my heart like you did with all the other guys you manipulated?"

Gum upper lip began to tremble. "I used to be like that," she tearfully admitted, "but I'm not that person anymore! I swear!"

"Then why have you been acting this way?" Beat asked her.

Tears began to pour down her face and she finally broke down. "I don't know!" She collapsed her head into her hands and began to sob.

Beat didn't know how to react; this was the weakest he had ever seen her. She seemed truly remorseful, but that didn't excuse her repulsive behaviour.

"I thought you were better than this, Gum," he said to her.

"I thought so too," she replied while trying to wipe the flood of tears from her eyes. "I don't know what's wrong with me, but I just can't help myself. I did it to Corn, and now I'm doing it to you."

"What the hell did you do to Corn?" he asked her.

Gum finally regained control of herself and stopped crying, wiping away the last of her tears. "What happened between me and him was one of the biggest regrets of my life." She let out a deep sigh. "You said you wanted to know how we met, and now you're finally gonna get your wish."

Beat sat down next to her, intent to hear her finally tell the story of how she met Corn.

"We met last summer," she began. "At the time, I was still a student in an all-girls academy with the girls in the Love Shockers. I started hanging out with them because they were the only other girls there who shared my hate for the academy. They introduced me to the whole heartbreak thing — you know, flirting with cute guys and then rejecting them when they ask you out."

Beat nodded silently, knowing all too well what she was describing.

"Well," she continued, "I started doing it, too. At first I did it just to fit it, but after a while I really started getting into it. I don't know what it was, but whenever I'd crush some poor guy's heart I'd get this sensation of power inside of me. It felt good, so I kept doing it.

"But then I met Corn. He was a student at a different academy and we just happened to bump into each other while walking home one day. At first we were just casual friends and I had no intentions of ever playing with his heart. Over time, we got real close and I genuinely enjoyed spending time with him. We found that we had a lot in common, too: we both liked skating and hated authority. And then, that coming summer break, he told me about this secret hideout he knew about. That's when he first showed me the Garage, and after that we've always hung out here.

"But with that summer break coming to an end, it was almost time for us to head back to school. That meant less time for us to spend together. But one day he brought up the idea of running away from home, and without even thinking I said yes. That's when the Garage stopped being our hideout and started being our home, but we weren't even thinking of starting a street gang just yet.

"With no school or parents to worry about, we really started getting close to each other. Then, one day, he suddenly asked me out."

"And you said no?" Beat interrupted.

Gum shook her head. "I said yes."

Beat was surprised by her response. "So you actually liked him back?"

"Yeah," she softly murmured as her eyes began to water again. "That was the first time I was actually in love with someone, but of course I had to screw everything up."

"What did you do?" Beat asked her.

"I don't know what happened," she said, "but the sick thoughts that the Love Shockers implanted inside me suddenly came flooding back. I saw Corn as just another opportunity for heartbreak and ignored my actual feelings for him. So, after a month of dating, I dumped him. It gave me a quick thrill, but it didn't take long for me to regret it and become broken hearted myself."

"Geez," Beat reacted with incredulity. "How the hell are you and him still friends after that?"

Gum looked down at the ground. "You'll have to ask him. We both ran away from home and had nowhere else to go, so we kept living here together. None of us mentioned the breakup ever again, and we just kept hanging out as if we never even dated. I was happy with that since it meant that I could still be friends with him, but things were really awkward between us for a while."

So that's why Corn never brought it up, Beat thought. "How long after that did you guys start the GGs?" he asked Gum.

"A few weeks after," she answered. "I suggested the idea of starting a street gang to him and he liked it. A lot of Rudie gangs were popping up at that time and it seemed like the perfect thing for us. It also gave us something to do other than sitting around in the Garage all day. After a while, our friendship started to heal, too. Everything seemed to be going back to normal, but the pain in my heart never went away."

"Then why didn't you just ask him out again?" Beat asked her.

She looked back up at Beat. "How could I? I'm too scared that I'll do the same thing to him again. The whole reason I declined the leader position of the GGs was because I was afraid I'd abuse my power to manipulate him some more."

That must be why she refused to be the interim leader, Beat thought to himself.

"I wish I could tell him my feelings," she admitted, "but I'll only take that chance after I've proven to myself that I've truly changed, and that obviously hasn't happened yet. I mean, I just tried to manipulate you."

"Yeah, but your relationship with Corn is different," Beat said. "You don't love me like you love him."

Gum looked away from Beat again, her face turning red.

Beat stared at her intently. "Y-You don't actually have a crush on me, do you?" he asked her nervously.

Gum remained silent.

Beat stood up from his bed and began pacing around the room. "Dammit, Gum!" he exclaimed. "Do you just fall in love with every guy you meet?"

"I don't!" she blurted out before looking back down to the ground. "It's just that… I needed someone to give me attention, and when Corn wouldn't do it I latched on to you instead. All I did was act friendly towards you, but my real motives were to mess with you like I did with Corn." Tears began dripping down her face again. "I can't believe myself. I'm so… fucked up."

Beat took a step towards her. "Gum…" he said in a soft voice.

"And then," she continued, "when Corn disappeared, I went hard in trying to seduce you. I mean, look at this ridiculous outfit I'm wearing just to get your attention, and I even went so far as to diss your girlfriend to your face! People think of me as tough, but really I'm just pathetic." She took the bow clip out of her hair and held it in her hands. "I hate how vulnerable I look right now."

Beat sat back down next to her and put his hand on her shoulder. "The Gum I've always known is tough, and she's still within you. You don't need to use guys like me and Corn as emotional punching bags; you're a stronger woman than that. You just have to get it through your head that manipulating people isn't worth it. You've seen for yourself that it causes nothing but pain, both for those you care about and for yourself."

"I wish it were that easy, Beat," Gum replied. "I just don't know what to do."

"Gum, look at me."

Gum was hesitant for a moment before looking up at Beat. He had a stern look in his face.

"I'm gonna tell you what to do," he said while staring into her tearful eyes. "You need to get up, wipe those tears off your eyes, put some decent clothes on, and tell yourself that you're better than this. Tell yourself that the Gum everyone else sees is strong, independent, and true to herself. All you need to do is see it, too. Screw the Love Shockers and everything that they taught you. If you look inside yourself — and past all that Love Shockers crap — you'll find the person who you always were. Not even those bitches could bury your true self. All you have to do is reclaim it."

Gum clenched the bow clip in her hands. "You're right," she said while wiping off her tears. "The Love Shockers aren't who I am. I'm better than them, and with everything that's been happening lately I need to be strong now more than ever." She smiled weakly. "Thanks, Beat. I'm sorry I burdened you with all of my emotional baggage, but I promise that I won't treat you as a cheap plaything ever again."

Beat smiled back at her. "I'm happy to hear that."

Gum moved in to hug Beat but he quickly pulled away from her.

"Uhh, I'd rather not hug you in… those clothes," he said, pointing at her shirt.

Gum looked down at her clothes and noticed her see-through blouse. She frantically jumped out of Beat's bed and turned away from him, covering her chest with her arms. "Oh my god!" she exclaimed, her face turning red with embarrassment. "I can't believe I was desperate enough to wear this thing without a bra! What was I thinking?"

"It's fine! I swear I didn't look!" Beat assured her despite getting a few good glances in.

Gum looked over her shoulder towards him. "It's a good thing you're faithful to Kat," she said, "otherwise who knows what would have happened here."

"I'd rather not think about it," Beat replied with a nervous chuckle.

Gum walked towards his door but stopped just before opening it. "Thanks again. I'll see you tomorrow." She opened the door and left his room, closing the door behind her.

Beat sat alone on his bed, taking in everything that had just transpired. Despite learning that one of his close friends had been manipulating him, he was fairly calm and reassuring towards Gum. He had finally learned everything he wanted to know about her and Corn, but the one thing he wished he could forget about was still on his mind.

Man, I need to get the look of Gum's body out of my head.

His earlier meeting with Kat had perverted his mind. He reached for his headphones and music player and started listening to Rapid 99's demo tracks in an attempt to distract himself.